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tv   The Chris Matthews Show  NBC  August 22, 2010 2:30pm-3:00pm PST

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[captioning made possible by nbc universal] >> this is the "the chris matthews show." >> ask not what your country can do for you. >> the time for change has come! >> channeling j.f.k. 50 years since he took own nixon, barack obama faces many of the same hurdles. even though he one in 2008, has obama matured? will he seem more seasoned by 2012. >> ties that bind. 50 years ago, the pope had some americans feared that the church would rule the president. some critics say the first african-american president favors blacks. in 1960, richard nixon's center
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right campaign opened the door to barry goldwater and the extremists. will we witness a similar republican split heading toward 2012. >> hi, i am chris matthews. we have dan rather, gloria borger, michele norris and richard sting el. first up, 50 years this summer, the historic battle between john f. kennedy and richard nixon. the highest turn out in history. enormous rallies. that campaign was the last to rock for the old application of parades and circus conventions and the beginning of modern media politics. it has parallels for barack obama today, some big ones. kennedy was the first catholic, just as obama is the first black. kennedy had nervous democrats on his right. southerners worried he might be
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too liberal. and the issue of experience. kennedy was running on a new frontier, versus the steady hand that dick nixon was selling. here was nixon accepting his party's nomination. >> now mr. kennedy has suggested that what the world needs is young leadership. but i think most people will agree with me tonight when i say that president d everyone gal, prime minister mcmill and, the chancellor, are not young men. but we are fortunate in that we have their wisdom, their experience and their courage on our side in the struggle for freedom today in the world. but kennedy spoke with conviction that america wanted for make a generational leap. >> it is time for a new generation of leadership. the republican nominee of course is a young man. but his approach is as old as mckinley.
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[applause] >> his party is the party of the past, the party of memory. >> well, i guess looking back, it looked like that trumped the let's stand pat argument of dick nixon. >> i was thinking. taking us back to 1960. we hadn't had our first television campaign. we were about to have kennedy versus nixon. i noticed in the acceptances speeches, neither one of them used a teleprompter. you can't imagine that now. and president kennedy was bidding to become the first american president born in the 4 l 20th century. we had never had one before. it was a case of is the country aching for change? the russians seemed to be on the move. a lot of people thought they might be winning the cold war. there was a sinking feeling that we were falling behind, and that was the atmosphere as we went into this historic race.
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>> it was action versus inaction for kennedy, and barack obama was about more. he was about transformation, not just action. i think his agenda in many ways you could argue was a lot more ambitious than kennedy. he wasn't just talking let's get moving. he was talking let's move in a completely different way. >> we are in the middle of that movement right now, and the question is the old charge of inexperience can be thrown at obama in the midst of a first election, running for re-election. they are saying he is gung-ho. >> they would probably point to a series of signing ceremonies on financial reform, health care and probably energy. that is probably how they will try to do that. and also to point to the kind of coalitions he is building overseas. offense, standing with david cameron and trying to build a
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coalition there. >> well, richard stengel, we have that question. kennedy was running against experience and youth with generational change and transformation. obama has done a lot of that. standing with caroline kennedy. second question, can you reignite that as you move on to a re-election campaign after november? that is what he is going to be doing. >> i think he has to try to to that. i would disagree with gloria. they both embodied change. when an african-american stood there and a young catholic stood there, they are saying i am the change you seek or have been waiting. >> the change you have been waiting for. >> as you were saying, he basically has to educate the electorate to say this is what i have done. for him, saving the economy was very much like the cubans missile crisis for jack kennedy.
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it has to be his defining moment. i came in a situation, looked at a situation that was dire, and he saved it. >> that is true. >> there may be small things he points to also. it may not be the big sweeping gestures, extended health care benefits for people in their 20's. >> here is where experience shows though. i think even people who work for barack obama will tell you that he did underestimate the amount of polarization in our application -- politics and may have overestimated his ability to deal with republicans. he said he was going to do that in his campaign, and he didn't. >> here is an issue that obama still faces. 50 years ago property stands talked out loud about their worries to the catholic president, that he might answer to question. here is a question posed by a group including norman vincent
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peal? >> is it reasonable to assume that a roman catholic president to gain favors for the schools and otherwise breach church and start. >> here is kennedy. >> as i come before you seeking your support for the most powerful office in the free world, i am saying to you that my decisions on every public policy will be my own as an american, as a democrat, and as a free man. >> gloria, the interesting thing is that by 1964, the republican candidate for vice president was catholic, and no one even mentioned it. >> right. chris: so in that case, different sectarian issues in the christian faith weren't as big an issue. >> right. chris: but race we have learned is not going to go away. >> politics was very different
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thing than it is now. i think kennedy gave the speech to the ministers talking about the separation between church and state. barack obama gave the jeremiah ya wright speech during the campaign talking about race. but it is an issue that he continues to confront again and again. >> because there is catholicism as an identity and as an issue. race as an issue in my lifetime i don't think is going to be swept away. >> it is hard to remember. there was a lot of suspicion about the catholics and though catholicism was widespread in the country. but it disappeared, and it ceased to be an issue. we know race is going to be a continuing problem for the country. it will be an issue any time barack obama or anyone of his
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heritage runs. that is a fact, and there is a great difference between the catholicism issue. >> the similarity between the two is once they have gotten past it to get elected, then they both wanted to escape from it. kennedy didn't want to have to reckon with my catholic issues, and now president obama, maybe to his detriment, doesn't want to reckon with any african-american issues. he doesn't want that plugged that he is in favor of because he is african-american. >> in saying he doesn't want to deal with it, but it is almost an i have for his foes to say something. chris: i got caught up in it, perhaps wrongly. i forgot about the race issue with this guy. it seemed to go away in the past 18 months. >> i don't think it ever goes away. i will say this. races are sometimes brewed as a storm that flows in. you wonder if it is going to be a thunderstorm or a tsunami.
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it is in the air all the time. >> but he can't ever escape from saying this is something that affects me, that i have a special knowledge of. he has to say this has special meaning to me. and it is not a negative. >> the difference from the kennedy race in 1960. catholicism ceased to be an issue in any campaign after president kennedy. race will always be there. chris: your favorite memory of the kennedy-nixon campaign? >> there were a lot of things. teddy white's book was good. i remember president kennedy just after he was nominated in los angeles. he came through the press room to get to his table, and i literally stood on a table top to do an interview, which frankly didn't have much substance. but the joy and confidence that exuded from him was something. the obama people don't want to
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hear it, but jack kennedy had a quick wit which people liked. and he used it in the campaign. we have yet to see that from barack obama. chris: a little thing from the kennedy-nixon campaign. tricks, some dirty, clean and some magical. the need for them to pull out things, whatever worked. nixon ran up the score against helen douglas by labeling her the pink lady for her strong new deal politics. kennedy wasn't background to run against someone named joe russo. in their 1960 presidential fa face off, it was set. kennedy had a trickster, dick tuck. one of tuck's tricks was to have an older woman run up to nixon immediately after the great
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debate with kennedy and yell you'll do better the next time. after nixon finally became president, his team decided if they couldn't beat the democratic people, they would come up with some of their own. here is pat buchanan nan explaining to sammer vin the tactics? >> what tactics are we willing to use? anything that was not immoral, unethic, illegal or unprecedented in previous democratic campaigns. [laughter] chris: old pat. nixon's things went way beyond campaign pranks. here is miller talking about g. gordon liddy's plan to spy on members of the campaign involving members of the world's oldest profession. >> he had another plan which would have used women as agents to work with members of the
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democratic national committee at their convention, and here in washington, and hopefully through their efforts they would obtain information from them. >> with regard to the use of these women as agents, did this involve the use of a yacht in miami? >> he envisioned renting a yacht in miami and having it set up for sound and photographs. >> and what would the women be doing at that time? >> i really could only estimate. >> well, based on the project and your recollection? what did he indicate? >> well, they would have been i think you could -- i think you could consider them a call girl. chris: he tried to keep a straight face there. when we come back, how the far right's influence on the g.o.p. began 50 years ago and how the forebearers of the tea partiers took own whehen nixon lost. be right back.
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chris: welcome back. the curent divide in the g.o.p. with the tea partiers on the far right getting great authority in the party had their recursors 50 years ago. it started with new york's moderate republican governor nelson rockefeller convinced richard nixon to put a strong civil rights plank in the platform. rockefeller proclaimed victory. >> this whole thing has moved in a way where it is going to make possible, i think, a broad range of support for the republican platform. chris: well, that made the cover of "time" magazine that week, and it made nixon's right wing furious. in his campaign booed, barry goldwater called the nixon-rockefeller agreement the munich of the republican party. goldwater beat him out for the
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nomination in 1964. goldwater led them on a wild losing campaign that year that espoused extremism over moderation. 50 years later, are the tea partiers determined to keep the party peru? we put it on the matthews meter. the meter is split. i haywood them, 6-6. gloria, you are a member and you voted no. >> i think it's a long way between now and twelve. let's see they do in elections. independent voters are beginning to criticize the tea party more and more. i believe you can have a presidential nominee in the republican party that doesn't have to have every part of the tea party. chris: dan, do you think they have enough power to demand that
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at least one of the two team on the ticket is a tea party hero? >> yes. we have to see what happens in november. if the tea party makes the kind of impact in this november's election that is widely perceived here and now, i think they will have in effect veto power. they will say if we don't, we will run an independent party campaign. >> sarah palin, the leader of the tea party is campaigning for all kinds of people as probable winners. she goes around like nixon did in 1966 and say i picked all these winners. i have clout. won't she have a veto? >> she will have a lot of power. people are listening to the siren song of sarah palin. with rockefeller, there was a real yolling cal distinction there. i would argue the difference between mainstream republicans and tea partiers isn't that great. they are concerned about deficits and big government. i don't think it is ever going
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to come to an actual rupture because they are actually not that different. chris: what about the power extreme people like the senator out in nevada that remedies if you don't like congress, scary stuff. or another who said we need to probe the democrats in congress for anti-americanism. these are extreme statements. are they going to be harmed by that? >> i agree with gloria in that this is all about independence. it goes right through the independent voters. those statements might inflame one sector of the pop lace, but it may make another sector skiddish. there was an appeal across the aisle in that case. when those statements are made, i am not so sure it does anything for democrats, who might be disenchanted with this administration and might be starting to float. >> but i do think the anti-big
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government agenda that the tea partiers adhere to is the same agenda that the republicans are talking about. >> independents are not monday leftic. we act like they all believe one thing. there are independents on the left and right. chris: i think the republicans are going to have to talk to the tea party people right through kelf. right through twelve. we will be right back.
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chris: welcome back. dan, tell me something i don't know. >> the voting machines, still a lot of problems with them. you are going to hear a lot of complaints, a lot of perhaps lawsuits. germany have done away with them. the dutch have done away with them. so many counsel have them, and they can't afford to let them goat. people are going to pay attention. >> the obama administration will finally be applauded by the democratic less when it keeps its promise to withdraw troops from iraq. at the end of the month, it will be a residual, but he will do it. >> democrats are showing enthusiasm in private spaces for charlie kristen, hoping he will
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caucus with them. there appears to be a lot of quiet somebody. >> democrats are fearful about lookeding the house in the midterm, but they are looking at the governors' races, new york, california, maybe texas and handoff. chris: when we come back, the big question this week, is barack obama lucky or unlucky that the republicans have no clear front-runner to run against him in 2012? we will be right back.
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chris: welcome back. republicans have no front-runner for 2012, and that brings us to this week's big question. is president obama lucky or not that republicans lack a solid front runner against him? better to have no chief opponent hammering him or better to have someone to hammer. >> the problem is the republicans have no leader. that is apart from a front runner. i think he has been lucky so far. you could make the case that there is nobody to really slash away at. in answer to your question, weighing everything, he has been lucky. >> i think he is lucky because he just waste in against the congressional republicans, and
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they have given him a lot of things, like congressman joe bardon apologizing to been. >> members of obama's election team and administration feel pretty lucky because in the absence of a republican candidate, sarah palin has become the voice of the republican party, and that makes them feel pretty good. >> you can't beat something with nothing, which they realize. his popularity rating is actually something. there is nobody out there that could approach that on the republican side. they are feeling good about that. chris: thanks for a great round table. dan rather, gloria borger, hi! welcome to progressive.com. come on in, and i'll give you a free quote. quote and compare in about 8 minutes. now, that's progressive. call or click today.
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